I can't believe your county fogs for mosquitos (everywhere?) without asking for approval from community members! OMG! I assume it floats around in the air for everyone (people, animals, insects, etc.) to breathe. I have a can of permetherin to treat my clothing (bought it for a trip overseas to a malarial infested area; didn't need to use it), and there are very strict guidelines as to how and where it should be sprayed. Wow! May I ask which county you're in?

I'm a newbie here, so I can't answer your question from personal experience. A member in the veggie forum mentioned this book for learning how to attract the 'good' bugs to your home: Great Garden Companions. This title also came up with good reviews on amazon: The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control.

good luck,
veggiedreams

Permetherin and malithion willalos kill any beneficial insects they contact. Both are broad spectrum poisons.

Wow... they do it here too in Sacramento county.. for West Nile virus. People SCREAM about it, but they claim they only use pyrethrins, supposedly they don't kill regular bugs, but even though I've seen a LOT of praying mantises, the lacewings are gone. :o( I couldn't believe it, the local news once interviewed people EATING out on a restaurant's deck while this was going on... all uncaring. This is why they spray... who cares about the people who scream, most couldn't care less, if the government says it's safe, the sheep will believe anything.

Hmmm, I had a feeling they might. My mantis keep disappearing. Another question, I was going to put out beneficial nematodes. I wonder if there is enough residue to kill them from fogging? I do understand the need; we live in mosquito alley. If they did not spray you could not go outside at night or during the day be in the shade. They are that bad. What would be a good commerically available beneficial insect for mites. I grow brugmansias and they seem to be a magnet for them.

Here's a good link on beneficials. Lists/pictures the problem pest and matches it to the benficial control. Not sure what you can do about the killer spraying other than register a strong complaint and get neighbors to do the same. And time the release of any beneficials that you might purchase to well after the spraying. Good luck!

Dave

Any bureauracy will always opt for the easy way out and ignore the consequences - but only for as long as the people allow it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Beneficial Garden Insects

When you stop using herbicide, insecticide, fungicide, and chemical fertilizer directly you will see a return of insects, birds, lizards (even horny toads), geckos, and toads. Everything will balance as best as it can with your county spraying their poison.

The spraying is definitely effective against mosquitoes, and there's probably nothing you can do about that. Most people are not aware that malaria was a huge problem as far inland as San Antonio until the invention of DDT.

But what county are you in?

Thanks for the link Dave. Yes my county Aransas fogs everywhere. It is the lesser of 2 evils I guess. I live on a few acres and there is a lot of acreage around me. I would have to move if they did not spray. They come out of the brush in swarms. I will have to see what works. I know the sprayman. He is a retired engineer and lives next door. I will tell him on really calm nights not to hit me real hard because I am trying to grow some beneficial insects. It is not calm here very much our average daily wind speed is 12 mph. I keeps the spray up 2+ feet above the ground.

We do have the Nile virus locally. I run zappers. I have a bad nematode problem also. I have a bad spider mite problem so I talked and researched and went with a Neem oil. It was much better than breaking out the big guns. I do have some laying around. These heavy killers work but disturb the balance so much that it just seems to cause more problems and create two or more for the one it cured. I have 3 boxes of beneficial nematodes to put out when I have a balance so they do not get killed from pest control. There are approx 21 million and will cover 6000 sq ft. It will be a good trial run, before I invest in more. I garden about 1 acre around the house. There are a lot of bad insects the soil has not been gardened for a while if ever.

Jim

I guess there is some recent evidence that the new organic insecticide called Spinosad really takes care of mosquitoes for a long time. You might look into that to supplement the spraying program. I feel your pain. We visit Port Aransas and Rockport a couple times a year and if the wind is blowing the wrong direction, or it stops blowing, you can be covered in skeeters at all times.

But you still need to so your part for organics. If you ever feel the need to use any chemical spray or powder for any reason outdoors, please come back here for help. There is almost always an organic solution.

Jeep, I don't think that nematodes have an indefinite shelf life, so maybe you should use them without waiting for the perfect "balance".

I have also read research - 'can't now remember the references - that seemed to say that the 'zappers' were not extremely effective against mosquitos, and the mosquito magnets that used CO2 were much better. If you are, in fact, using a mosquito attractor, my apologies. The attractors aren't cheap, but do seem to work, and are relatively nontoxic, since CO2 is all over anyway.

Having lived in Fl, outside Ft Lauderdale in an area that was then very country, I fully understand your mixed feelings about mosquito control by the county. If there was no spraying, the mosquitos were awful - and even with spaying, you could tell when it had rained in the 'Glades, as 3 days later, there came a new hatch to make life miserable. The mosquitos here, while small, and so far with no West Nile, are a royal pain, as there are several varieties, some fly by day and some in the evenings, so there is NO time they aren't around. I keep thinking that one of the 'magnets' would be a good investment....

I will check into Spinosad. I am battling a spider mite problem or explosion. Now that is a hard critter to kill. The plants went from healthy to sick almost overnight. I have heard that argument on Zappers. All I know that if the population is high. I go in around dark and wait a few hours and then it is safe to go outside. The zappers do work. I have been trying to be kind but my mite problem is getting bad. I will wait a few more days and see if the applications work.

The nematodes have been in the fridge for 1 week so they are ok for a few more if needed. I may have to use a combination to keep things under control. I have never had a mite problem but then I have never had this many plants. I do not know if they came with the wind or on some plants. Next time any plant coming in will be inspected and given a shot of neem oil. I have trimmed a bunch of foilage and disposed of it. Not much more to trim. So it is a last call. I have read several hundred pages on mite control and there are some good systemics that are less harmful due to attractants and systemic killing. Still no good cure either organic or chemical. I have some tobacco soaking and will try a spray of it if needed.

dont bats love mosquitoes? i read that thousands come out of carlsbad cave every night to eat flying insects. and from under a bridge somewhere, maybe texas, to eat fruit insects as far away as mexico. i read plans to build bat houses for back yards. isnt this better than spraying poison on all of us, our animals, vegitables??

Austin has the world's largest urban bat colony. Most of them live under Congress Ave. bridge, downtown. It's quite a sight to see, when over a million bats fly out at dusk in search of food. Even if they're not in jeep's county, I wonder if they couldn't be 'invited' with a bat house.

That's a great idea, actually. I'm going to look into it. I live about 12 mi north of austin. We see a few bats now and then in the sky at dusk. I admit, it does sound a little creepy, but I'm all for creating more biodiversity in my yard/garden.

Never seen or heard of a bat around here. I will have to look into it. I love anything that does work for me and requires little maintenance. I would build a bunch of bat houses. We have martins here and they do a fair job. I do not have a Martin house but I think I will build a few. Thanks for reminding me there are other solutions. Pesticides have almost become a mindset of todays culture.

Several organic things I have done seem to be paying off good bebefits. There is much to learn or relearn or rethink. Organic offers a long term solution for me.

Jim

A DNA study of bat guano by National Geographic proved the bats in south central Texas eat cotton boll moths, not mosquitoes. Radar studies show they fly up to 10,000 feet high to get the to moths.

I see bats working my street lamp sometimes on summer nights. I grew up in Corpus and just moved inland last year. I recall vector control trucks spraying neighborhoods in ther evenings folowing wet periods. I did not pay as much attention to insects but their were still plenty of them.

I read somewhere a Martin will eat 2000 insect a day. Well they do not eat mosquitoes. Hmmm

Here is a link that might be useful: Martins and Mosquitoes

Dang! There goes the purple martin theory!! It's that stupid science coming in again to ruin a perfectly good old wive's tale.

The major problem is that all the chemicals in the environment are killing off all of the frogs, salamanders, minnows, etc, that eat the mosquito larva.

As long as we keep fogging the heck out of everything with nasty pesticides we'll never really control the mosquito problem, and we'll be sickening ourselves in the process.

Remove the predator and the prey multiply out of control. Look at deer in New York, they're everywhere, and eating everything. They don't have natural predators anymore, no more wolves to hunt them. So they breed more and more all the time. Now obviously I don't advocate releasing wolves into New York to wander through the suburbs, but that's not my point. I think we could reduce pollutants in the environment and the natural predators of mosquitoes would do the job for us. And we would have cleaner water too!

Big box stores sell bat houses for backyards. They are with the birdhouses. I saw some at Lowes here in Florida not too long ago, and they have them listed online too.

Jeep
Good luck with going organic. I have gone mostly organic. Miracle grow for containers is pretty much it for chemicals. I use scrounged leaves for organic matter for the lawn and garden beds, and new this year, alfalfa pellets for lawn/shrub fertilizer (switched after three years of milorganite which was a replacement for years of chemical fertilizer). Going orgaqnic for the lawn has been the greatest. The lawn looks better each year. My success in the vegetable garden is hit or miss. Going organic has made little difference for me. Something does great every year, while other things don't. Weather, watering habits, plant location, etc. all have an affect, and I am learning bit by bit. Luckily I know where the grocery store is, so I garden for the experience, not survival. I hope that I can become a master organic gardener in time, but until then, I can be happy knowing that I am dong less damage to the environment while learning. Over the last four years, I have not bought and used 200 lbs of chemical fertilizer for the lawn! Yay! Think of the pallets and pallets of chemical fertilizer in the big box stores. ALL of it is going straight into the ground. Soon. As a matter of fact, every single chemical concoction on the garden center shelves in every big box store in this counrty will end up out of its packaging and into our environment this year. And then the shelves will be restocked to do it again. Everything you don't buy is something that will not have to be restocked. Having faith and taking a chance is hard to do. Nature works. I did a bunch of reading, got excited about the possibilities and did it. I get about the same results (slightly better) while buying almost nothing in the way of chemicals. I am very happy with the results of my going towards organic.

hummingbirds eat mostly bugs... :o) Plant some hummingbird flowers. YOu attract them and they will come and eat your bugs.

I use dunks- they contain Bt. I empty every water source in the yard- pools on tarps, spare buckets, and watch out for empty tires (I don't have any, thankfully)- then I throw a little chunk of a dunk in each rain bucket. The skeeters are attracted to the water for laying eggs, but they don't survive.

Whether they help your problem or not- they really are quite effective at killing larvae in a water source!

How do hummingbirds suck bugs in through their long thin beak?

It's my understanding that hummingbirds do catch insects, mostly gnats and no-see-ums, maybe mosquitos, while they are feeding babies. Once the babies fledge, it's back to nectar.

I was in Port A a couple summers ago, and it was crazy, there were freakin mosquitoes everywhere. They might have not yet sprayed.

Between me and my wife's family we've been going to Port A at least two times a year since the 1940s. We're certainly not natives but unless someone else steps in with better info, here's what I think I know about the mosquitoes. They are there all the time but usually either hiding from the wind or hanging out on the other side of the island from where the tourists are. Spraying helps a lot but it is hard to tell because of the constant wind. Most tourists stay either in town or on the ocean (windward) side of the island. During normal wind you will see more mosquitoes on the bay (leeward) side. But if the wind stops or shifts to the north or west, that's when us tourists notice the problem. It seems to be especially bad whenon the ocean side because the dunes slow the wind down even more.

Almost 100% correct. Some mosquitoes will fly over a mile for a dinner. There are a lot of marsh area. A few does not bother me. Non Natives run for cover. I have seen them so thick before where you had to run and could feel them hitting you as you ran. I do dose the areas around my house with the larvacide donuts which are free from the county. That is how I learned of the different types. We had a swarm and they were coming from standing water a mile or so away. I decided it was time to put this standing water on my donut list. Now we live fairly pest free until a good rain comes again. We did have a few inches today and I am awaiting my new Mantis cases. I hope they are hungary. I need to identify good vs bad insects. There was a mammoth hatch today. I found some new critters crawling on my brug leaves. I just let them be. Nothing could be worse than the spider mite problem I just went through. Time to put out the Nematodes.

Jim

Almost 100% correct. Some mosquitoes will fly over a mile for a dinner. There are a lot of marsh area. A few does not bother me. Non Natives run for cover. I have seen them so thick before where you had to run and could feel them hitting you as you ran. I do dose the areas around my house with the larvacide donuts which are free from the county. That is how I learned of the different types. We had a swarm and they were coming from standing water a mile or so away. I decided it was time to put this standing water on my donut list. Now we live fairly pest free until a good rain comes again. We did have a few inches today and I am awaiting my new Mantis cases. I hope they are hungary. I need to identify good vs bad insects. There was a mammoth hatch today. I found some new critters crawling on my brug leaves. I just let them be. Nothing could be worse than the spider mite problem I just went through. Time to put out the Nematodes.

Jim